Oklahoma Department of Corrections, The GEO Group, reach 1-year contract agreement

Corrections Department Director Steven Harpe presents his agency's budget to state lawmakers in a January budget hearing. The Board of Corrections agreed to a one-year contract with The Geo Group on Wednesday. (Photo by Carmen Forman/Oklahoma Voice)

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Board of Corrections on Wednesday agreed to a one-year contract with The GEO Group, which operates a Lawton prison.

It will allow The GEO Group to continue running the prison while the state will begin to take operations over. The facility will be completely state-run by next summer.

The agreement comes after The GEO Group sent a letter of discontinuation to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections last week. The letter said the private company would not continue to operate the Lawton Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility after Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a $3 million increase .

The GEO Group will receive a $1.7 million cut to its $48.3 million contract, ODOC spokeswoman Kay Thompson said. The extra money will come from ODOC’s budget, she said. The private group has had a contract with the state since 1998.

The Board of Corrections also agreed to remove 228 inmates from the 2,612-inmate facility.

“This decision will significantly enhance our ability to address and manage inmate incidents,” GEO’s Executive Chairman George Zoley said in a statement.

In May, a fight left two inmates dead and 30 others injured.

The Lawton prison is considered among the most dangerous in Oklahoma, a prison official said.

ODOC Director Steven Harpe said in a statement that the Lawton prison will not go backward.

“This does not mean the facility will return to the status quo,” Harpe said. “We are putting more procedures in place to ensure safety for our incarcerated population.”

Thompson said there isn’t a plan for when or where the inmates will be moved. However, she said the agency will be “transparent” about the process.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has to sign off on the contract before the deal is complete, Thompson said.

The GEO Group’s current employees will begin the process of becoming state employees as a part of the deal.

“…We do background checks that are a little bit deeper than what GEO, and like CoreCivic, and those places do,” Thompson said. “Not everyone that works there probably will become a state employee, but that’s just speculation.

“Technically, no one’s going to lose their job.”

In anticipation of potential employee vacancies, Thompson said ODOC is beginning recruitment.

The GEO Group, which owns the Great Plains Correctional Center in Hinton, leases the prison to the state.

Thompson said the contract does not affect the Hinton facility.

(Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday to correct the contract amount.)

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